


The Fine Art of Distraction

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Series: The Fine Art of Distraction [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bloodlust, Bloodplay, Breathplay, Danger Kink, Incest, Knifeplay, M/M, Masochism, Mild Gore, Multi, Mycroft is the best big brother in the world, Mycroft's Meddling, Painplay, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Sadism, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Relationships, hints of gunplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:00:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has always been a little more fascinated with murder than is strictly healthy, but he's staying firmly on the right side of the law. With a little help from his friends.</p><p>or</p><p>How Mycroft Holmes, big brother extrordinaire, found love, kinks, and box a medical grade scalpels in the fridge</p><p>or</p><p>How John learnt to ignor the weird noises coming from Sherlock's room and not mind the blood stains on the sheets</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disturbing Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a great many things, but chiefly by abbichicken's wonderful 'The things that excite' and by the first season of Dexter, which had UST, psychopaths and hints of incest, three of my favourite things.
> 
> Mystrade shippers be warned it is a minor pairing and Mycroft's attention is really focussed elsewhere.
> 
> Beta's by KattsEyeDemon and Dasorine but all mistakes are my own. I own nothing except a dirty mind, a TV licence and an obsessive love of Mark Gatiss.

John is good at ignoring awkward things. Years living in barracks filled with excitable young men and only communal showers will do that to you. And, of course, he’s English. So while he’s aware of the heated looks and electric tension in the air between him and Sherlock, has been since the first moment they met, he’s perfectly prepared to go on ignoring it for the rest of his life.

Sherlock, on the other hand, thrives on awkwardness and irritating people, so about six months after ‘the Pool Incident’, as John thinks of it, Sherlock looks up from a book on obscure tropical poisons and says, “We can’t ever actually have sex, you know.”

John stares at him. He thinks his mouth might even have fallen open in shock. “How…” he begins, but Sherlock interrupts him, which is probably a good thing as he’d really no idea what he was going to say, so it probably would have been something stupid.

“You didn’t need to say anything John, I may not be quite as empathetic as you, but credit me with some sense,” Sherlock says blithely. “I’d have to be a blind deaf monk not to have noticed the sexual tension between us. And I’m not. So I thought I’d just get things cleared up now, before they get awkward.”

John hadn’t been going to say anything on the subject, ever, possibly even under torture. But now someone else has brought it up, he feels he has a free reign to ask embarrassing questions, even if the person they will embarrass is himself.

“What? Why can’t we ever have sex?” he demands. “Anyway I though you weren’t even interested in sex?! You told me you were married to your work!”

“It’s an open relationship,” Sherlock tells him calmly, “Or it would be if my particular kinks weren’t quite so specialist. As it is, the relationship is theoretically open, but I haven’t ever actually tested the idea.”

“You’ve never…” It had occurred to John of course, Sherlock’s never shown any interest in anyone and social interaction is hardly his forte, but still… the idea seems somewhat ludicrous. Sherlock understands sexual motives in crimes so well, has solved at least one case since John’s known him which required knowledge of some pretty obscure sexual positions. And he’s so damn good at seducing people. Usually takes no more than a shy smile to have people eating out of his hand.

“Not since I discovered the Work.” Sherlock always refers to his calling in such a way that you can hear the capital letter falling into place. “There was a time before the Work however, when I was a teenager with a drugs habit. Of course I’m not a virgin. If I was, how would I know that my kinks are too specialist for anyone sober to want to go to bed with me?”

“They can’t be that weird surely?”

“I’ve been turned down by fellow junkies, even when I bribed them with drugs,” Sherlock says flatly.

John did his time in A&E like all med students, and he’s treated his fair share of high teenagers so he can safely say that getting them to turn down sex _which also comes with a free hit_ is a major achievement.

Sherlock sees the unspoken question in his face (as he always does) and says, “When Donovan says I get off on it, the murders and the crime scenes and the chase, she is closer to the truth that she will ever be comfortable knowing.”

“So your kink is…” The sentence has a hook on the end, but Sherlock’s not one to give away any more information that he needs. In this, as in all aspects of his life, he’s a terrible hoarder.

“Complicated, and not the same as yours,” is his only reply and he returns to his book, the slight scowl on his face making it abundantly clear that future questions will not meet with a polite response.

It would be lie to say John doesn’t think about it again. In fact it takes up far more of his waking thoughts than he’s prepared to admit, and a fair few of his dreaming ones, but he at least tries to put it from his mind. Until, that is, the day he walks in on Sherlock masturbating on the sofa.

John’s first reaction is to look away, which is when he sees the photo, cut from a magazine, lying on the floor where Sherlock had dropped once he became involved enough to use both hands. It shows a handsome young man, quite naked. That at least is normal enough. What’s less normal is the white chalk outline on the pavement around the young man, and the fact that he’s lying in a pool of drying blood, which has obviously come from the vicious gash in his throat.

John thinks he’s beginning to see why Sherlock has been turned down so often.

He coughs embarrassedly and Sherlock sits up so quickly he nearly falls off the sofa, his hands covering his bare crotch.

Normally if he’d caught Sherlock doing something horribly embarrassing (and it had happened on more than one occasion) John would turn his back or leave the room, or do something to give Sherlock time to get himself in order, but, since nothing about the situation is normal, he settles instead for saying, “Are you wanking over photos of the Cappuccino killer’s victims?” (So called because he only murdered baristas).

Sherlock blushes and mumbles his assent.

“Well now I understand why you’re single,” John says lightly, his tone teasing, though he’s aware of the truth in his words. “Do you want to kill people or be killed?”

Sherlock shrugs (he’s zipped himself back up so his hands are free again). “I don’t want to actually die. Everyone has fantasies more extreme than they’d ever be comfortable acting out. And I don’t mind whether I’m victim or attacker, it’s the brutality I enjoy. Not that I’m adverse to a little pain. But I don’t actually want to be murdered, and I almost never want to murder anyone any more. Mycroft gave me exercises for that.”

“But you used to. And you sometimes still do?”

“I wouldn’t ever kill anyone unless it was self-defence,” Sherlock says, sounding a little hurt. “Surely what I do in my own head is my business. So long as I don’t hurt anyone, if I want to fantasise about murdering Lestrade, that’s my own business.”

“You fantasise about Lestrade,” John states flatly, almost at the point where nothing can shock him anymore.

“About stabbing him,” Sherlock says. His tone was abrasive, even aggressive, but John knows him well enough by now to know he’s just trying to cover up his embarrassment and fear. “But I won’t. And it’s none of your business.”

A horrible thought suddenly hits John square in the stomach. “Have you ever…” he begins, then can’t bring himself to say it out loud so starts again, “I mean, you can get off without killing someone…?” Alright he’s put up with a lot from Sherlock since they’d met, and he had killed a man to protect him, but he isn’t sure he could cope with living with a cold (or hot as the case might be) blooded murderer.

“I have once taken a life. It was self-defence and it was an accident. That was when Mycroft stepped in. Interfering he might be, but I will admit that for once he was right. I assure you, John, I’m not a murderer and you are at no risk.”

That isn’t precisely what John’s worried about, but he trusts Sherlock, despite his blatant lack of scruples, not too lie to him about this. If he says he’s never killed anyone for fun then it’s the truth.

There’s probably more that needs to be said, there’s certainly more he wants to ask, but the desire topmost in his mind, now he’s sure Sherlock’s safe, is to get away from the awkwardness that is his semi-naked flatmate and go and have a shower and attempt to put their conversation from his mind, at least temporarily.

To his own surprise, though probably not Sherlock’s, it’s him who brings it up, later that evening, when he’s clean and dressed in old comfy clothes and has found an unopened tin of beans for supper (he’ll now only eat in the flat if he’s bought the food within the last two hours or it’s in a sealed container). Sherlock is still lying on the sofa, something that makes John flush uncomfortably whenever he looks at him, but he’s now wearing a dressing gown over his trousers and is tapping away at his laptop.

John’s trying to watch the telly, but even the mindless stuff they put on ITV on Thursday evenings is proving hard to follow, his brain too busy with other things. Eventually he asks, out of nowhere but knowing Sherlock will follow the thought process that lead him there, “How do you want to kill me?”

“Impressive deduction John,” Sherlock says, not looking up from his computer. “I suppose my providing specifics of my Lestrade fantasies… And of course you have a far better knowledge of my personality than most people.” He does look up then, twisting his head around further than can be comfortable to look John straight in the eye, unblinking and a little intimidating, and says, “I want to strangle you.”

John just stares at him. He’d mostly assumed he wouldn’t get an answer; even hoped Sherlock wouldn’t have an answer to give. Faced with this open candour he doesn’t know what to say. He just swallows nervously and tries not to notice when Sherlock’s eyes drop to his neck, just for a second.

“I knew from the first time I took you a crime scene, the Study in Pink, as you insist on calling it. You were craning over the body and I kept staring at your neck, couldn’t help it, even with a really interesting corpse to play with. And of course it would have to be something personal, up close, for my first real friend. I’d have to be able to watch your face while I killed you. That’s why it’s strangling and not just suffocation, or hanging. If I were to kill you, it would have to be face to face, with my own hands.”

John’s left speechless. There’s affection in that little speech he’s sure, and he still trusts Sherlock that he was telling the truth about not being a serial killer, but he’s still scared, real fear, deep in the pit of his soul, because on anyone else, in any other circumstances, John would call the expression on Sherlock’s face wistful.

“That’s not my favourite fantasy about you of course,” Sherlock continues, apparently unaware of his flatmate’s discomfort, “Me killing you I mean. I’d really much rather you stopped me. You are an excellent shot after all, and knowing you’re just upstairs and armed is such a temptation when the boredom sets in.” He grins at John’s surprise. “I did tell you it was the brutality I liked. I really don’t mind whether I’m the victim or the attacker.”

John’s mind has almost shut down now, the shock making his thoughts fragmentary and slightly unfocussed. Hardly aware that he’s doing it, he whispers, “Moriarty?”

Sherlock gives him a small tight smile and says, “I once worked on a case that involved a woman who was trying to turn her boyfriend into her ideal man. If I were to do the same the result would be Moriarty. Maybe a little more hands on, less inclined to contract out his crimes, but that mind… He is as close to perfect as I’m likely to find.”

“You’re not…” That’s a truly awful thought, one John wishes he could banish, but it refuses to be unthunk. Unthinked. John reflects that there should be a word for that and also that he’s trying to distract himself.

“I have no idea where he is, I have never given him any indication of my feelings and I have never met with him outside of the case on which you assisted me,” Sherlock says firmly. John feels a flood of relief sweep through him.

“So if that’s… I mean if you like…” John pauses to order his thoughts and master his acute embarrassment and begins again. “How do you get off if that’s what turns you on?”

“Back when I was still an addict I got high enough that I couldn’t think and just let instinct do its thing, or found someone willing to hurt me enough to dampen the darker desires. Even if there’s no real danger and the injuries are only transitory, if it hurts enough I can ‘get off’, as you put it.”

“And do you still…”

“Mycroft’s too powerful now. Apparently finding a stranger willing to beat me till I cry is far too dangerous and he always stops me, even though he knows why I do it. Interfering prude. I just stay inside, avoid people and try to distract myself when I get the urges now.”

John really can’t decide whether that’s reassuring or terrifying.


	2. Scalpels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mycroft is a wonderful brother, a genius and guinea pig (metaphorically speaking).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains gore, eyeballs (not belonging to the living), Sherlock being extremely creepy, knifeplay and other generally disturbing themes. Apparently it made my beta feel quite ill. You have been warned.

John isn’t sure why, given his friend’s history when it came to intoxicating substances, but he’d always assumed that Sherlock didn’t drink. He’d never seen him take more than a sip of beer as part of a disguise. (He rarely wears anything but his usual suits and coat but he can still disguise himself better than anyone John’s ever seen, using voice and posture were lesser actors use costumes and paint.)

After cases, Lestrade often invites John to the pub and John often goes and, despite having been turned down every time since they first worked together, he always invites Sherlock as well, and for reasons of his own, this time Sherlock had accepted.

They’d been working on a particularly gruesome double murder, two young women, both barely 18, raped, tortured and eventually left to bleed to death on the floor of a condemned multi-story car-park. John was used to bodies but these had turned his stomach and Sherlock’s complete lack of sympathy had bothered him even more than usual, so he was glad of the offer, even if it did mean more time in Sherlock’s increasingly grating presence.

After considerable negotiation with the manager (who’d had to be called because the girl behind the bar was new and way out of her depth) Sherlock had got some wine he considered worth drinking and had preceded to knock it back at an astonishing rate. He’d been his usual self in the pub and it wasn’t until they set off home that John noticed just how drunk his friend was. He was swaying slightly and was making even less sense than usual. He still managed to hail a cab first time however, an ability which never ceased to amaze John, long after he’d become accustomed to Sherlock’s magnificent brain.

Now they’re safely back at the flat (John had had to help Sherlock up the stairs), Sherlock ensconced in the kitchen with several jars of eyeballs and a new box of scalpels, both of which he’d produced out of the cupboard that was supposed to hold their crockery. John debates stopping him, but decides that he’s too tired to bother. Right now, anything that keeps Sherlock quiet and out of mischief is good in his book, even if it comes with a risk of Sherlock bleeding out on the kitchen floor. He’s seen enough of that smug grin to last him a week at least. A nice hot soak is what he needs, and once he can no longer feel the blood of innocent teenagers on his hands, bed and sleep.

Sherlock’s on his forth eyeball (and John still hasn’t worked out what he’s doing – he seems simply to be cutting them open very slowly, not doing any real experimentation) when the doorbell downstairs rings. There’s the sound of murmured voices, one of them Mrs Hudson’s, and then a familiar steady tread on the stairs.

Mycroft steps into the room, his umbrella by his side as always, and John bitterly abandons his plans for a quiet, Holmes free evening. He starts to offer some polite greeting, maybe even a cup of tea, when Sherlock steps into the kitchen doorway, gore-covered scalpel still clutched in his hand and breathes, “Mycroft,” in breathy surprise as though his brother is the one person he wants to see above all others, which confirms all John’s fears about his inebriation. Mycroft looks as surprised as John feels.

“I thought I’d drop by and check on you,” Mycroft says in the easy, casual manner that usually means something dreadful is going on. “I saw the photos of the bodies from your latest case. Particularly brutal wasn’t it? Congratulations by the way, not a very challenging puzzle really, but not the sort of thing most people would want to see before breakfast.”

Suddenly it all fits into place in John’s brain and he feels queasy. He’s noticed, however much he’s tried not to, all Sherlock’s little displacement activities when faced with violence or pain, and Sherlock’s words of a week ago echo back at him. “I avoid people and try to distract myself.” The thought that Sherlock’s drunk because of the feelings of desire those poor mutilated girls’ bodies had raised in him turns John’s stomach, sickens him more than anything he saw during active service did, but also incites his sympathy because however twisted he might be, this at least confirms that Sherlock’s firmly on the waggon. He might be the most fucked up person John’s even met, but he’s still a good man, and not a serial killer.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says again, and takes a step into the room, eyes fixed on his brother with a disconcerting intensity.

Mycroft’s eyes take in Sherlock’s swaying form, the remains of the eyeballs, the scalpel, and then swing to John.

“I think perhaps it would be safer for you to stay elsewhere tonight,” Mycroft says, his voice tight with what John thinks is worry.

“No, it’s okay, he says he wants to strangle me, and the focus seems to be on knives tonight,” John says, unable to stop himself and then horrified at what he’s said.

“Not knives,” Sherlock says, his voice stronger now, “Scalpels.”

Mycroft stares at his brother for a long time, his face displaying that complete lack of animation that is the Holmes equivalent of screwing up one’s forehead in thought. At last he says, very quietly, “Where are you Sherlock, on the scale?”

Sherlock replies that he’s at eight and Mycroft visibly winces, which is more terrifying that Sherlock swaying and clutching razor sharp surgical instruments. Mycroft isn’t afraid of anything.

“Sherlock, I need to have a chat with John,” Mycroft says, very gently. “Would you be so good as to give us a little privacy? It’s only for a minute.”

Sherlock gives Mycroft a suspicious stare, but goes willingly enough, taking one of the still whole eyeballs with him.

When they’re alone, Mycroft turns to John. “I had no idea he would ever tell you about this particular little peccadillo of his,” he begins, and John thinks ‘little peccadillo’ is a massive understatement in the circumstances. “I am, however, exceedingly glad he has, because it may make things a little easier. I came here with the intention of hurting Sherlock. Cases such as the one you have just completed make the urges far harder for him to ignore, and a little pain can help his control. I am willing to do anything to protect my brother from prison and I pride myself that I have never once failed to distract him without causing him any lasting harm.

“It has, however, been becoming increasingly difficult to curb his desires in recent months and I am becoming seriously worried. We developed a scale, when I was first assisting him with his little problem, for rating the strength of his urges. Ten is where I find him standing over a body with a knife in his hand.” Lestrade, John notes mentally. “I haven’t known him as high as an eight since he killed that thug. I think my usual methods may not be enough in the circumstances. What I propose therefore is that we allow Sherlock to exorcise a few of his demons on me, with you acting as attending physician and generally stopping things from getting out of hand.”

“You’re insane,” John tells him flatly.

“Many have said so,” replies Mycroft mildly, “but whatever he may think, I love my brother very deeply and I would far rather put my life in his hands and yours than risk him giving into his urges and all that that would entail.

“You know that he plans his ideal kills in his spare time? A different method for everyone close to him?” John nods, his heart beating painfully with fear and his stomach doing little flips of fear. “I can guarantee he is in his room right now daydreaming about dissecting me alive. It’s always eyeballs when I’m on his mind for some reason.”

“I can’t,” John says, shaking his head, “And I can’t allow you to either. It’s far too dangerous, he’s far too dangerous if all you and he say is true, and I have to live with him besides! How are either of us supposed to look him in the face ever again if we do this? He needs friends more than he needs blood, that I do know.”

“That is true doctor, though I suspect that right now he would not agree. However I do not believe you are capable of stopping me from entering his room at this moment in time, I am far faster and stronger than I appear, and so with greatest regret I must inform you that I intend to go in there whether you accompany me or not. It is up to you, doctor, whether I walk out again.”

That is blackmail of the lowest kind, but John can’t, in all conscience, allow Mycroft to simply go to his death.

He gives no indication of his agreement that he’s aware off, but Mycroft nods and says very seriously, “I appreciate this more than I can say John,” and heads for Sherlock’s room, leaving his umbrella propped against the sofa. All John can do is grab his medical bag from behind the door and trail after him, hoping he won’t need most of its contents.

Sherlock is sitting on his bed when they walk in, twirling the scalpel thoughtfully between his fingers, the eyeball sitting on his bedside table staring at him accusingly. He looks up when Mycroft enters, a strange mixture of hope and dread on his face.

“I’ve decided to allow you to have you wicked way with me,” Mycroft tells him, and there’s something in his voice which tells John that, against all logic, he’s smiling. “There are only two provisos. The first is you do not attempt to kill me, John, yourself, or any bona fide visitors to the flat, though I’ve told Mrs Hudson and my PA that we’re not to be disturbed, so that shouldn’t be a problem. The second is that John will act as attending physician, and you are to listen to him and allow him to do his job. Do you agree?”

Sherlock nods eagerly, looking like a child whose Christmases have all come at once, his eyes wide with wonder. “And you know…” he begins, but Mycroft cuts him off.

“Of course I know what you want to do to me. Speaking of which, John, would you be so good as to fetch the box of scalpels?”

There’s a voice in John’s head screaming at him that he’s an idiot, that he should call the police, that it’s all an elaborate practical joke, that Sherlock will kill them both, but he ignores it as best he can and dutifully collects the scalpels.

When he eventually returns minutes later, after a long drawn out battle with his reluctance to return to that room, Mycroft is lying on Sherlock’s bed, quite naked, and looking surprisingly calm for a sacrificial victim. Sherlock’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing old track marks and a nicotine patch. He grabs a scalpel from the box as soon as John steps through the door, vibrating with excitement.

If he’d ever thought about such things, John would’ve wondered how one initiated something like this. Sherlock has no such worries. He leans over his brother and, without any warning or hesitation, slides the blade into the tip of Mycroft’s left middle finger, making a little noise of pleasure when Mycroft cries out that turns John’s stomach, and then says calmly, “Palmar Digital Nerve,” as though John didn’t know.

Sherlock takes his time, mapping his way across Mycroft’s body, leaving a trail of vicious wounds. He stimulates Mycroft’s nerves expertly; sliding the blade under skin everywhere he knows will be especially painful and shivering with delight at Mycroft’s cries of pain. He spends a long time carefully cutting up a flap of the skin on Mycroft’s right forearm, exposing the layers of skin and then fat and finally the muscle below. John has to look away then, because he’s done the same when dissecting corpses, and he’s seen worse wounds on living men, but watching Mycroft just lie there and take it, his face locked in concentration as he struggles not to pull away and cause more damage, twists at his heart and makes him long to escape. Sherlock works way across his brother’s torso, the pauses on his left shoulder to cut deep and then tug the wound wider, making Mycroft’s eyes water in agony, as that the bone is briefly exposed. As he works his way around his brother’s body, slicing open flesh, peeling back skin and leaving deep stab wounds everywhere a major nerve comes close to the surface, Sherlock names everything, the bones, muscles, nerves and veins, in a low singsong voice. John isn’t sure he’s even aware he’s doing it.

He throws away one scalpel when it becomes so slick with Mycroft’s blood that his hand slips, opening a ragged gash in Mycroft’s stomach and making him howl in pain, and takes another from the box. His fingers are coated in gore, but he carefully licks them clean, making small noises of appreciation as he does so. John is dimly aware, through the fog of revulsion and fear, that he should probably have stepped in before now, but he’s also aware that he’s in shock and quite unable to move and as such, is of no use to anyone. All he can do is sit and watch, and listen to the blood thundering in his ears and the sickening noises the brothers make, and wish himself away.

Sherlock straddles his brother, careful not knock any of the open wounds but apparently unconcerned at the other’s nakedness or that there’s no way from this position that Mycroft will fail to notice Sherlock’s arousal, and carefully makes a shallow cut across Mycroft’s collar bone with his new scalpel, then spends long minutes lazily licking up the trails of blood that seep from it and pool in the hollows of that elegant neck. Even in his shocked state, John is aware that the sounds Mycroft’s making have suddenly become dramatically less pained and a lot more willing.

Sherlock moves down his brother’s body, stopping regularly to make some small incision, these designed to sting and too bleed rather than solely to feed his own black desires. He’s known for years that, when it comes to pain, Mycroft’s tastes run in a similar vein to his own, though nothing like so extreme, and he is now aware enough to factor this knowledge into his actions. By the time he’s kneeling on the edge of the bed to lick blood from a slowly bleeding wound in the fattest part of Mycroft’s muscular thighs, his brother is hard and obviously enjoying himself, which can only be good, as John seems to be in shock.

Sherlock’s tongue is edging up the inside of Mycroft’s thigh, closer and closer to committing a mortal sin, when Mycroft gasps out, “John. Please Sherlock. I need…”

Hearing his name whispered in that broken voice wakes John up from the fog he’s been inhabiting. He picks up his bag and surveys the damage, willing himself to be detached and trying hard not to look at Mycroft’s arousal or the bulge in Sherlock’s trousers. The sheer amount of blood horrifies him and he feels his stomach drop when he realises that he was supposed to prevent Mycroft from getting hurt, and however much the older man seems to have enjoyed himself, he has spectacularly failed in his duty.

Mycroft is bleeding from a myriad of wounds but only four of them require stitches. John gives Mycroft a dose of the strongest painkillers he has (stolen from the hospital when he realised how dangerous life with Sherlock was going to be) and fetches him a glass of water to take them with. He’s unwilling to leave the brothers alone together, but Sherlock has put the scalpel down and Mycroft is white and shaking now he has nothing to distract him from the searing agony.

After allowing an agonisingly long few minutes for the painkillers to kick in, John disinfects the worst of the wounds and carefully lays out what he’ll need, bandages, dressings, sterile needle. Sherlock reaches for the last, glancing up at the last moment to ask John’s permission. “May I?” he asks, sounding really quite normal for a man who’s aroused, straddling his naked brother, and whose face hands and torso are covered in blood. “I want… It would help me, if I could…”

John looks to Mycroft who nods, so John hands the needle to Sherlock, who looks far too happy about it. John is actually reduced to closing his eyes and humming when Sherlock begins his work, because the scalpel is one thing, sick as Sherlock’s kinks are, as least the blade is designed to cause harm. This is supposed to be for healing, for mending people, not for kicks, but Sherlock looks like he’s enjoying himself rather too much, and makes very quiet breathy little noises when the needle presses into the pale skin below. Mycroft, John thinks, must be the best big brother in the world because he’s lying there, not trying to stop Sherlock, just holding himself still for the needle. And watching his brother’s face with a burning intensity that makes John wonder things he never wanted to think about their relationship.

When Sherlock’s finished, John opens his eyes, and they work together to dress the wounds that need it. There are a few small cuts that will heal best if just left, but most are deep enough to be dangerous if left open to the elements. As it is, John thinks there are a few that will scar. He says as much and Sherlock looks delighted, while Mycroft looks on indulgently.

When they’ve finished, John helps Mycroft to dress, comfortable now he’s being a doctor, doing something he understands. Mycroft’s chest is bulky with dressings, his shirt only just doing up, and John is painfully aware that that’s his fault for not calling a halt to things earlier in the proceedings.

When he’s dressed, Mycroft gives Sherlock a peck on the lips, just this side of morally okay, and heads for the door, limping very slightly as the movement drags the fabric of his trousers against the cuts on his thigh.

As he accompanies him to the door, a nasty thought hits John. “We’re not going to be visited by secret service types out for our blood, are we?”

Mycroft grins at him, a singularly un-Mycroft-like expression. “Do I look like a man out for revenge?”

He looks, John thinks but doesn’t say, like a man who’d just had the best shag of his life. It’s disturbing.

At the door John hands Mycroft his umbrella and Mycroft puts a hand on his shoulder, thanks him (for what, John doesn’t know, when all he did was sit and let the man get hurt) and then says, “Just give him a few minutes before you barge in demanding explanations and apologies and the like. He’s been fantasising about doing that since he was thirteen. Let him enjoy the afterglow.” And with that he’s gone, though not nearly as snappily as usual thanks to the uneven gait and slight stoop.


	3. Don't say we didn't warn you...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is really starting to wonder about sound-proofing his room.

John had heeded Mycroft’s advice and waited till Sherlock left his room to confront him. He hadn’t been sure what he was going to say, after all it had been consensual, with a doctor on hand, and it wasn’t like Sherlock hadn’t warned him he was a psycho. All the same he had felt that really ought to say something. It hadn’t helped his presence of mind when Sherlock came out of his room, dressed only in his boxers and still covered in his brother’s blood. He had to take a deep breath and close his eyes for a moment to stop himself from tracing the path Sherlock’s hands had made down his own body, clearly marked in drying blood, with his eyes.

Sherlock had grinned at him, a sort of wild joy in his expression that struck John as being the most sincere expression he’d ever seen on his face and said, “I’m going to have a shower. I’ve put it off as long as possible, you have no idea how good this feels, but now it’s starting to dry and I’ve wanked myself sore it’s probably time I cleaned up. I’ll never get all the blood out of my hair if I don’t wash it now.”

John had just stood in the corridor and stared, not for the first time since he met Sherlock, rendered entirely speechless.

He’d slept badly that night, unable to calm his racing mind, and when he did finally doze his dreams had been filled with images of blood and death and coming into the mortuary at Barts to find Sherlock tearing Molly’s throat out with his teeth.

He awakes grumpy and still exhausted but he drags himself out of bed anyway aware that he won’t be able to fall back to sleep. He spends the days wondering round the flat, not able to really focus on anything, glad for once for the ominous silence that pervades 221B. Mrs Hudson pops her head round the door and goes away muttering to herself, sure they’ve had one of their ‘lover’s tiffs’. Sherlock emerges from his room just long enough to retrieve a tin of soup which he eats cold from the tin and then goes back to his room, leaving the tin on the side right next to the bin.

The next day is much the same, nothing to do and no real desire to do anything. John laughs bitterly when his horoscope for the week tells him that he will discover a shocking revelation about a friend.

At ten that night John’s half watching a repeat of Family Fortunes when a voice like cut glass behind him says, “the host slept with the mother from the Davenports before they started filming. She found the entire experience very disappointing.”

Despite himself John laughs, twisting to look at Sherlock, standing in the doorway, looking unsure of his welcome. The sight of his nervousness, invisible to anyone who didn’t know him, released something that had been knotted tight in John’s chest and he smiled, hoping Sherlock could read the apology and forgiveness in his face.

Apparently he could because he bounded into the room with almost his intra-case energy and threw himself onto the sofa. Where a lesser man would have landed face first on the floor, Sherlock managed to land looking as though he were posing for a portrait. The effect of his posing was slightly spoiled however by his crumbled dressing gown and the big yellow smiley face grinning down at him from the wall behind.

“You’re not moving out,” Sherlock says with certainty and John nods because while he knows it’ll be a while until the dreams stop, he wouldn’t give up Sherlock’s friendship for the world.

“We might need some new house-rules though,” John adds.

“I won’t obey them.”

“But making them makes me feel better.”

Sherlock reclines and says, “Very well. Go ahead.”

“The first thing is no porn in the living room.”

Sherlock snorts indelicately. “I assure you John, I have no interest what so ever in images of moderately attractive women with silicone breasts, however little they’re wearing.”

“Unless someone’s crucified them,” John retorts and is amazed to find he doesn’t feel disgusted when Sherlock smiles. John knows that smile – it’s the one he wears when Sherlock suggests getting his favourite take-away. “I don’t mean mainstream pornography, I mean your idea of arousing pictures. Photos of corpses and torture victims and that sort of thing. I don’t deliberately look at images that arouse me in the shared areas of the flat and nor should you. Unless it’s part of a case of course, that’s different. And even then you are not allowed to comment on how much they turn you on.”

“Cor look at the stab wounds on her?” Sherlock suggests dryly and John can’t help but smile.

“Exactly. Second new rule. When you get the urges, whenever there is even the slightest risk you might harm someone, tell me or Mycroft or both. Even if there’s nothing that can be done, it’s still only fair that I know.”

Sherlock nods. “I accept the spirit of the rule, but I would prefer to amend it too whenever the urges get out of hand. If I had to tell you whenever I fancied hurting someone we’d never get anything done and frankly, you’d be disgusted with me.”

John chooses to ignore that, knowing that, however true it may be, Sherlock only said it too try and get a rise out of him. “Thirdly, bloodstains. You get them on the sheets, the furniture, the carpet, whatever, you get them out again.”

Sherlock smirks at him. John is well aware that he’ll never obey that rule but at least John will have a good reason to feel righteously indignant. “Is that all?”

“Yes. No. What happened, with Mycroft, have you ever done anything like that before?” He wasn’t going to ask that, but it’s been running through his mind since Saturday night.

“No too both the torture and subtle hints of incest.”

“Do you want to do it again?” Stupid question really.

Sherlock surveys him seriously. “I really cannot properly express just how much,” he replies.

John hopes he’s talking about the torture and not the incest, and then hates himself for hoping that. “Fine. But promise me, please, as your friend, never with an unwilling partner and never without supervision, preferably mine.”

Sherlock nods. “That seems reasonable. I found your presence extremely helpful in controlling myself. I am all too aware of what would have happened had you not been there, and annoying as Mycroft can be, I would have regretted it afterwards.”

“You would have killed him?” He doesn’t doubt Sherlock’s bloodlust, not now, but even so, to want to kill his own brother…

“Yes I’m afraid I would have. Thanks to your presence however no one was seriously hurt” (his definition of serious was clearly very different from John’s but John understood what he meant) “and Mycroft and I both enjoyed ourselves. I would have enjoyed myself of course, but Mycroft’s pleasure was a previously unconsidered bonus. It made the urges must easier to control.”

It doesn’t surprise him, not really, that Sherlock, so very clever and yet so very stupid, had completely failed to consider what seemed to him the obvious first port of call with sadism as deep as his. Still perhaps that was all to the best. By all accounts he wasn’t very in control of himself in his teens and John’s life would be so much emptier if Sherlock were in prison.

“Just one last thing Sherlock,” John says. “These urges… Do you ever want to harm animals? Or children?”

“How very banal of you John. I have no particular desire to harm children, but you need to understand that I have no particular objection to it. It has simply never interested me. As for animals, why would I want to hurt any creature that can’t understand what’s happening? Half the fun is the fear.”

Not very reassuring, but better than the alternative.

Their week is quiet after that. Sherlock is cheerful and fairly easy to live with, at least for the first couple of days. After that he begins to sink into the gloom he usually inhabits when he hasn’t got a case. He covers the entire kitchen in test tubes and Bunsen burners and other chemical paraphernalia, spills hydrochloric acid on the linoleum and, until John puts his foot down, attempts to cultivate the castridium botulinum bacteria in a tub of wafer thin ham. He breaks three mugs, the toaster, the kettle (though that happens so often that John has a spare already waiting at the bottom of his wardrobe) and in a fit of pique, carefully places human organs in every cup, glass, mug bowl and saucepan in the flat, meaning John has to either wash up everything in sight (a job he hates) or order a take-away (which he can’t afford).

This is, in fact, all pretty much par for the course when Sherlock’s between cases, but now he knows that there is a way to cheer him up, at least for a couple of days, he can’t get the idea out of his head. He finds himself absent mindedly bringing up Mycroft’s number from his phone’s address book over and over. Sherlock notices him doing it one day and proceeds to spew out a long winded and fantastical explanation of how he can prove that John and Mycroft have actually been having an affair for the last 7 years. It’s probably an attempt at a joke, but John’s too annoyed to see the funny side and Sherlock sulks for hours after John throws a book on anatomy at him. John quite enjoys the quiet.

Eventually he can’t bear it anymore and sends Mycroft a message. ‘He’s driving me up the wall and Mrs Hudson’s threatening to throw him out.’ In all fairness she threatened this on an almost weekly basis and they all knew she didn’t mean it. She loved Sherlock like... not a son exactly, more like a cat. Not house-trained, won’t come when it’s called, gets into noisy fights when you’re trying to sleep and brings home dead things. Definitely a cat.

Normally John would phone Mycroft, neither of them are particularly keen on texting, but for once the thing John usually detests about texting, the fact that you can’t read your correspondent’s emotions, is exactly what he wants. He’s well aware of what is written between the lines of his text and he knows Mycroft will see it and he’s burning with shame and embarrassment that he sent the message.

The reply is almost instantaneous. Mycroft texts nearly as fast as his brother. ‘Was thinking of dropping by, I’ll see you this evening’. John doesn’t know if he’s pleased or horrified.

He spends far too much of the rest of the day just wondering what Mycroft is intending to do. He may be sick of Sherlock’s sulking, but he absolutely will not allow him to hurt his brother again, so soon after last time. Then he remembers what Mycroft had said about hurting Sherlock to distract him and thinks viciously that it’s about time Sherlock got a taste of his own medicine, even if he will likely enjoy it.

Mycroft arrives at 7.49. John knows this because he’s spent much of the evening thus far just staring at the screen of his laptop, not really even thinking, just watching the little clock face in the corner of his screen tick away.

Sherlock answers the door without even being asked. Of course, he always knows who’s on the stairs, and he would be excited to see his brother after that happened last time they met.

Mycroft smiles at his baby brother. Sherlock is just a little taller than him, but somehow Mycroft manages to give the impression of being far taller that he really is. Something about his imposing presence. He’s wearing a classic mac over his suit and it looks somewhat out of place. It occurs to John, one of those banal useless thoughts one gets during times of inactivity, that he’s never before seen Mycroft in a coat. Or for that matter, use his ubiquitous black umbrella.

“John tells me you’ve been bored, brother dear,” Mycroft says, staring into Sherlock’s eyes without blinking. When they’re not trying to be normal, neither of them blink as often as normal people, which makes their already disconcerting stares even more so.

“I haven’t got a case,” Sherlock replies, which for him, is practically small talk.

Normally by now, Mycroft, always one to observe social niceties, would have greeted John, or at least looked at him. Today though, he has eyes only for Sherlock. John is relieved. He really wasn’t in the mood to supervise their semi-incestuous games tonight.

“I found I had an evening free, so I thought, given your predicament, it was only brotherly of me to come round and amuse you. And I do rather owe you one, don’t you think?”

Sherlock’s breathing quickens.

“I’m looking a lot better than I did, but really Sherlock, you did make a mess of me. And I thought, since it’s your fault I’m injured at all, it really ought to be you who takes the stitches out.”

No one, not even someone with a voice like Mycroft’s, should be able to talk about removing stitches as though it were foreplay. For the brothers though, John supposes it is.

“And after that?” Sherlock’s voice is distinctly breathy, and a little lower than normal and it strikes John that this is probably the most normal he’s ever heard him sound when he’s not acting (provided one disregards what’s actually being said of course).

“I always thought it was a pity that they banned the use of the belt in schools,” Mycroft replies, tipping his head to one side as he surveys his brother. “It really was an excellent way of enforcing discipline.”

Sherlock looks thrilled. “With clothes pegs?” he demands and Mycroft laughs indulgently.

There’s a part of John that really really wishes he could unhear the entire conversation, because he’s glad Sherlock’s perked up but he didn’t need to know the details, but there’s another part of him, which is shouting a bit louder, that wants to know what they’re going to do with the clothes pegs.

He settles for grabbing his laptop and going to bed, wishing them a hasty goodnight which they both ignore.

He Googles the sexual uses of clothes pegs and then sort of wishes he hadn’t because he can picture, oh so clearly, the way Sherlock would squirm if you used them on his nipples and while the descriptions of cock and ball torture make him wince, he can imagine how much Sherlock would like it, imagine him writhing with the pain of it and still begging for more and he sort of hates himself for finding that image hot.

It’s only a few minutes later that he hears the door of Sherlock’s room open and the soft murmur of voices and wonders why it didn’t occur to him when he went to his room that the walls in the flat are thin and Sherlock’s room in just next door. But on the other hand, where could he go? He’s between girlfriends (though he is self-aware enough to realise that this might become a permanent between) and he’s no real family or close friends in London. Only Sherlock.

For several minutes he hears just the murmur of voices, the low ebb and flow of conversation. If he concentrates he can distinguish Mycroft’s voice (smooth and slightly sinister, but in a very sexy way) from Sherlock’s (rich and deep like dark chocolate now he’s enjoying himself) but he can’t make out enough words to follow the conversation, so he doesn’t bother trying.

Then the voices go quiet and he hears the creaking of the springs in Sherlock’s ancient mattress (his reasoning being that since he barely ever sleeps there’s little point in shelling out money for a comfy bed). Then, breaking the stillness of the flat like a gunshot, he hears the thwack of leather against skin and Sherlock, his voice clear and penetrating, saying “Really brother mine, is that the best you can do?”

Mycroft’s reply is another crack of leather on flesh, his belt John thinks and tries in vain to remember what it looks like. Anything but focus on the noises.

Without really meaning too, John is counting the strokes, their noise filling the quiet flat until number thirteen when Sherlock, who’s been making noises too faint for John to really make them out properly, moans, a deep throaty moan that would put a porn star too shame. Mycroft says something then which John can’t make out but which he imagines is something smug.

Sherlock moans, not so loud as before, but more than loud enough for John to hear, at the next three strokes. There’s a gap then, some creaking of the bed springs and then Sherlock wails, a noise that would have John running to the rescue if he didn’t know the vein in which Sherlock’s tastes ran. The clothes pegs, he thinks. Somewhere pretty sensitive to have dragged a noise like that from Sherlock, not that his flat mate was ever inclined to be quiet.

There are more wails, more noises of real pain that have him clenching his fists and supressing all his chivalrous instincts, and then some whimpers that John can’t place, but which his imagination comes up with a myriad of explanations for, some of them extremely unlikely even factoring in just who it is next door.

The strikes start up again then, coming faster now, though still regular. Irregular, arhythmical, isn’t Mycroft’s style after all.

The crack of the leather is getting louder, which must mean it’s hitting harder, and wringing increasingly desperate sounds of Sherlock and John’s loosing count and staring at his laptop but not seeing it, his mind entirely on what’s happening in the room next door. His experience with kinky sex up till now had been limited to a girl who enjoyed the idea of being spanked but winged about the pain when they actually tried it, and one PVC nurses uniform, which he hadn’t even liked very much (he’d spent too much time around actual nurses). He’d pegged himself as middle of the road vanilla, but the sounds Sherlock’s making, the images in his mind… He’s doing his best to ignore his cock, which is demanding attention, because listening is one thing, he can’t avoid listening short of putting in earplugs, but jerking of to the sounds of his best friend getting whipped by his brother is so many kinds of wrong.

Neither of the brothers have spoken for a long while so John jumps when Sherlock’s voice, broken from crying out, nearly shouts, “For God’s sake Mycroft, fuck me you tease!”

That sends a spike of lust through him that he knows is oh so wrong because they’re brothers and one of them's Mycroft and Sherlock’s his best friend, but the lust, the desperation in his friend’s voice will stay with him till the end of his days he’s sure. He’s never heard anyone sound like that.

He can make out Mycroft’s words now, but only because he’s straining his ears, desperate for every sound.

“Patience brother dear. You still have to clean up all these nasty wounds you left me with, remember?” The only word to describe Sherlock’s groan is broken.

There’s the sound of hurrying feet and then Sherlock is flinging open his bedroom door, and standing there quite naked and rock hard. Even from the front, John can see a few red marks, where the belt had curled round his body and left marks on his hip bones and the front of his thighs. John shoves his laptop down the bed to cover his groin, hoping Sherlock is too far gone in lust to notice his flatmate’s erection.

“John, I need your medical bag,” Sherlock says, breathless with excitement. “Mycroft’s going to let me take his stitches out.” He uses the tone of voice other men would use to say ‘he’s promised me a blowjob’.

Speechless, John gestures to where it lies on the floor. Sherlock grabs it and thanks him, already retreating and giving John a fine view of the myriad of welts, some of them leaking tiny droplets of blood, that adorn his back and legs.

Things are relatively quiet from next door after that, just Sherlock’s heavy breathing and Mycroft’s occasional soft noises of pain, but John can picture what’s going on so clearly it’s as though he’s there.

Mycroft will be dressed only in his smart trousers, his softly padded chest bare and covered in the little wounds, now scabbed over, and new clean dressings over the larger wounds. He can imagine, oh so clearly, Sherlock straddling his brother, maybe rocking his hips a little to tease, scissors in one hand, tweezers in the other. He’ll start on the left shoulder, at the deepest cut, the one that went down to the bone, peeling away the dressing. Mycroft will wince slightly as the adhesive pulls at his skin and Sherlock will suck in a breath of appreciation when he sees again the short straight line, bisected by the neat black lines of the stitches.

Sherlock will make the cut in the middle he’s sure, because that way he’ll get to remove two lengths of thread instead of only one and so prolong his own pleasure. He’ll pull them out one by one, watching with that too intense, too bright stare of his, drinking in the way the flesh pulls taught, objecting to the removal of the stitch. He sees too, in his mind’s eye, Mycroft’s wince of pain because it will hurt. He might be a doctor but the stitches were field medicine, done in a hurry and not in a sterile environment and it’s probably a little early to be taking them out anyway, but Sherlock had like the idea so much.

When the stitches are out he’ll bend forward, examining the half healed wound, prodding it, pulling at it, probably more than is sensible, enjoying himself more than is decent and Mycroft, understanding brother that he is, will allow it, looking on indulgently and tolerating the sharp stabs of pain.

Once he’s repeated these actions across Mycroft’s body, left shoulder, right forearm, inside left elbow and the deep jagged gash across his brother’s soft belly, he’ll sit back, admiring his handy work, like a painter admiring his masterpiece. Maybe he’ll even be moved to kiss Mycroft. John’s not sure he can imagine the brothers kissing, it seems too human somehow for them, too normal. Too gentle.

Once he’s drunk his fill of the sight of Mycroft’s mangled chest, Sherlock will redress the wounds that need it, quick and efficient, not lingering over a task that has little appeal to him, though probably not being as gentle as he should be.

John’s so caught up in his mental image of what’s happening, he almost forgets they really are next door, really are removing stitches and dressing wounds, until he hears Sherlock say, “You’ve never looked more attractive My, but will you please fuck me now?!”

The exasperation, the curious mix of politeness and obscenity, the demanding tone is just so very Sherlock that John isn’t surprised to hear a little huff of amusement from Mycroft.

“You never did learn patience my dear,” he chastises him, but John can hear that he’s moving, the bed springs giving him away. John wonders whether Sherlock has any lubricant and if so, how they’re ever going to find it in the hell hole that is Sherlock’s bedroom.

“Not when I can see that you’re going to be left with scars,” Sherlock replies, though there’s a pleased tone to his voice that suggests Mycroft has already acquiesced.

There’s movement then, and heavy breathing, but no more words until Sherlock says, inpatient as always, “that’s enough Mycroft, I won’t break if you’re a little rough with me.”

“Are you sure?” Mycroft asks, though there’s a very slight tremor to his voice that betrays his wavering self-control. “It’s been 4 years and eleven months since you were last penetrated and most men would require far more preparation that that.”

“And what part of ‘I like pain’ don’t you understand,” Sherlock growls, apparently unperturbed by his brother’s intimate knowledge of his sex life.

“On your head be it,” Mycroft says, and he must be entering his brother because the bed springs groan almost in harmony with Sherlock.

There’s a pause and some panting and then Sherlock says, “Get on with it then!”

John gives in and pushes his laptop onto the floor, wrapping his hand around his cock because Sherlock in pain is one thing but he’s listening now too Sherlock getting fucked into the mattress and begging for more and however straight he thought he was before he moved into 221B, there’s nothing that’s not hot about that, even Mycroft’s involvement.

Mycroft’s talking, his voice too low for John to make out words over Sherlock’s groans and the bed’s protesting squeaks, but John can image what it is, oh so clearly. It’s undeniable that there’s something creepy and wrong about Mycroft’s protective big brother attitude given what going on, but John can’t deny that it’s also really hot, and he can imagine Mycroft telling Sherlock, in that velvet voice of his that sends hot shivers of want up John’s spine, what a bad boy he is, how much he deserves to be punished. It doesn’t matter to John now that Sherlock would probably laugh at such role-play, the image makes John dig his fingers nails into the thigh in an effort to keep quiet.

The thrusts are speeding up, the bed groaning like it’s about to give up the ghost, and John’s hand speeds up with it. His preference is usually for a slower wank but desire is overwhelming him, it feels like he’s been hard forever, and Sherlock’s gasps are turning his insides liquid.

He feels the heat spreading through his body, the pleasure building to the point of no return and knows he’s going to come even before the brother’s next door.

As he groans his release, white bursts of pleasure behind his eyes, he hears an answering gasp through the wall and Mycroft’s voice as he cries out his brother’s name.

There’s a long silence, just panting and the low murmur of Mycroft’s voice and then Sherlock groans, “Oh God My,” and gasps and if John wasn’t all blissed out and post-coital he would have got hard again at that sound never mind that Sherlock was moaning his brother’s name and not his.

That last though penetrates the orgasmic haze he’s inhabiting. “Christ,” he mutters to himself, “I’m so fucked!”


	4. An Interlude of Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The main players reflect on their circumstances and Lestrade gets a shock (this might well be re-written at least once before the fic is over because the Mystrade really is blink-and-you'll-miss-it)
> 
> Dedicated to findingsherlock who wrote the best Mycroft/Lestrade/Sherlock set piece ever

Sherlock was being unpleasant. He knew he was. But that didn’t mean he was going to stop.

The trouble, really, was that for the first time in his life someone knew the real him. He wasn’t entirely happy with that idea.

He’d lived his whole life behind a mask. He’d gone to Mycroft, of course, when he’d watched the light go out of a man’s eyes and known that if he didn’t get help he would never stop killing. So Mycroft had known the facts, known that Sherlock wanted to kill, but possessing the facts was an entirely different thing from knowing the truth.

Ultimately, he felt, the feel of his hands slick with his brother’s blood parting torn flesh to stroke a finger along the gore streaked bone of his brother’s clavicle outweighed the discomfort of someone seeing into his soul. That didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for Sherlock though.

“For heaven’s sake Sherlock, what do I need to do to convince you that I’m on your side? I’d do anything for you! You’re my brother and I love you. If you told me you wanted to play a game of noughts and crosses on my back with a scalpel, I’d let you.

Sherlock grinned at his brother. “You have all the best ideas, big brother…”

 

***

 

John is still getting used to the idea that his flatmate and (loath as he sometimes is too admit it) dearest friend is a psychopath. Using the word in its colloquial, rather than medical, sense (which Sherlock would sneer at him for). That the man he shares his life with (and isn’t that a telling phrase) wants to kill people.

He’d accepted, even if he ignored it, that there was a certain something between him and Sherlock. Sexual tensions, chemistry, call it what you would. He’d never been attracted to a man before, never even wondered about it. He was as straight as they came. Except when it came to Sherlock, apparently.

But despite his straightness, he was okay with that. Sherlock always has to be different after all. But that he has this… connection with a man who is aroused by dissecting his own brother is harder to deal with.

He’d known of course that there was something a little wrong with Sherlock. He’d spent hours of his down-time attempting to diagnose his friend (his complete lack of expertise in the field of mental health not-withstanding). Eventually however he’d come to the conclusion that the problem with Sherlock was that he was a Holmes. For all he was better, and more inclined, to pretending to be normal, John was beginning to see that Mycroft was just as eccentric as his brother. He willingly submitted to Sherlock’s less than tender ministrations after all.

But there’s a world of difference between knowing your flatmate’s a little eccentric and knowing there is a small but significant risk of him throttling you in your sleep just for kicks (which the adrenaline junky bit of him doesn’t mind nearly as much as he should).

What bothers him is that the frisson, the chemistry, hasn’t gone away. It should, he knows it should, especially after he discovered Sherlock’s taste for incest, but it hasn’t gone, if anything it’s grown. John’s worried about what that says about him.

“Your go John,” Sherlock says, voice amused. For some reason he thinks it’s hilarious that John keeps his eyes shut when Sherlock gets the scalpels out.

“Middle row, left hand collum,” John says, still not opening his eyes. He has no idea who’s winning, but Sherlock had whined at him until he agreed to play, and Mycroft promised he didn’t mind.

“Hah!” Sherlock exclaimed. “Top left, I win!”

John’s really really worried about that that says about him.

 

****

 

Lestrade is far too… what’s that awful word Sherlock uses… oh yes, vanilla. The Detective Inspector is far too vanilla for Mycroft’s tastes, but otherwise he’s an admirable lover and Mycroft is lying on his stomach, his head resting on folded arms, enjoying the low ache in his muscles. It’s been a long time since he last had no strings attached sex, especially on a whim like this, and he finds he’s rather missed it. What he hasn’t missed though, he realises when the Inspector clears his throat, is the incredibly banal conversation normals always want to make afterwards.

“Mycroft, on your back,” Lestrade begins in that horribly irritating tone normal people use when they’re about to ask a question they don’t actually want to know the answer too, “why do you have a scar in the shape of a game of noughts and crosses on your back?”

Ah, the scars. Mycroft tends now to mostly forget the scars. He’s aware of the wounds as they heal, and the fresh scar tissue is very sensitive, but once it stops aching every time his shirts rubs against it he tends to forget they’re there. He’s aware that he has them, of course, and if pressed he could recite how and where he got every one and in the case of most of them, the noise Sherlock made as he inflicted them. Some things you never forget. But they’re not at the top of his mind.

“Sherlock,” he tells the Inspector, wishing that that was enough to satisfy his curiosity, it really ought to be after all the man is aware of how eccentric his brother is, but knowing it won’t be.

“He played noughts and crosses against himself on your back with a knife?” Lestrade asks and Mycroft is aware that the post-orgasmic comfortable atmosphere is quickly dissipating.

“He played it against John actually, using a scalpel. Much harder to make the cuts that fine and controlled with a knife, even a small one.”

“John…” Lestrade is running out of things to say. Really if all he’s going to do is be horrified and parrot Mycroft’s words back at him, he shouldn’t have started this conversation.

“John was there to make sure Sherlock didn’t kill me or flay me or anything unpleasant like that,” Mycroft told Lestrade, not wanting to give the doctor a reputation as a psychopath. “Not his first choice I assure you, but when he realised neither Sherlock nor I were going to be persuaded not to play with scalpels he felt it his duty to supervise. Just as he always does. He’s a good man, but he’s learnt just as we have that it really is the only solution to the problem and so much the better if he’s there to keep it all in check.

“The problem,” Lestrade says, trying to make it sound like a question, but there’s something in his tone which gives Mycroft all the clues he needs to reply, “You’ve seen him on enough crime scenes. I think you are aware of the problem.”

“And because Sherlock is a little too keen on murder cases, you let him carve children’s games into your back. That’s the obvious solution to you?”

Mycroft sighs and rolls over, covering the offending scars. “I made some comment about Sherlock playing noughts and crosses on me. It was intended as a joke, but also a demonstration of my commitment to helping him. He’s never felt entirely secure in my affections. He clearly took to the idea. Frankly I’m not sure it merits this level of inspection. Sherlock wanted to do it, he often wants to do things like that but he usually restrains himself, and I didn’t mind allowing him. I am aware that one cannot, legally speaking, consent to being wounded that severely, but I assure you I was entirely willing.

“And before you say it, no it didn’t arouse me. My pain threshold is fairly high and I won’t deny that I have a masochistic streak, but believe me it was not a particularly pleasant sensation. I did it because I love my brother and wanted to help him. And of course, it’s the closest you can get to a person, both physically and metaphorically. Now stop thinking about it, I want to sleep. If John Watson can deal with it you certainly can. Or if you can’t, delete the memory. But stop thinking so loudly, you’re giving me a headache.”

Lestrade rolls over without saying another word and sulks. Mycroft can hear him sulking.

He is generally pretty good at understanding the normals, it’s not like they’re very complex, but he can’t make sense of their reactions to this. Even John, dear sweet John, accepts rather than understands.

They see everything as black and white of course, can’t see all the myriad colours in between. Can’t see that even something that agonisingly painful, something which he doesn’t get off on at all (probably no one in the world, except perhaps Sherlock, is that masochistic), can still be enjoyable. That twisted, broken creature who delights in suffering is Sherlock’s true self, the self he hides from everyone beneath layers and layers of masks, and Mycroft feels like the most privileged man in the world that he gets to see it. Everyone can see the trust he has in Sherlock, to put his life in his hands, but only he and Sherlock understand the trust his brother is demonstrating in him to put his soul in his.

He would do anything for Sherlock, suffer any torment to save him, but this isn’t a torment, this is a privilege. Holmes’ have always been more concerned with their bodies than their minds, and he’s more than willing to suffer physical pain for this mental and emotional pleasure.


	5. Careful with that axe Lestrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just too let you know (because I forgot last time) noughts and crosses is the UK version of tic tac toe
> 
> Credit to grassle for the use of danger slut as a term of endearment

Sherlock stops running so suddenly John nearly knocks him off his feet. Ahead of them Lestrade is advancing towards Wentworth, his truncheon in his hand. It won’t be enough, John can already see that. Wentworth is not the sort to go quietly and he always carries at least one knife. He’s famous for it. Beside him, John feels Sherlock tense and hopes it’s only with worry, but with Lestrade about to be stabbed in front of them, it’s just as likely to be arousal, or jealousy.

Lestrade holds up his badge, says, “Stop, police,” and then Wentworth’s on him, one hand pulling a long bladed kitchen knife from his pocket. Lestrade jumps out of the way of the first slash, but he’s backing, not seeing where he’s going, and his foot catches on a broken paving slab. He falls heavily, his truncheon knocked from his hand. John can here Sally Donovan racing towards us, hear the sirens in the distance, but he knows they’re all going to be too late, just as he knows he would be if he tried to intervene. It’s automatic after years in the army. Assess the situation and if the chance of risking yourself outweighs the chance of saving a comrade you stay put, unless you’re an idiot or the man in danger is a very dear friend. Wentworth raises his knife, prepares the strike and then Sherlock’s there, his coat swirling dramatically, twisting Wentworth’s hand and taking the knife from him. Still holding it he shoves his captive against the nearest wall, pressing his face against the brick and twisting his right arm up behind his body harder than the police would approve.

There’s something off in Sherlock stance, in the way he’s balancing himself and John guesses that under the cover of his ridiculous coat he’s got the knife pressed against Wentworth’s kidneys. He leans forwards, whispers something into his captive’s ear and then steps back, slipping the knife inside the folds of his coat. The murderer falls to his knees and when Sally arrives he begs her to arrest him. John never finds out what it was Sherlock said to him.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

It is, in theory a good idea. Anything that helps to keep a good man like Lestrade safe is a good thing, and if there’s one thing Sherlock knows about it’s knives. At least it would be a good thing if Sherlock wasn’t _quite_ so keen on the idea of stabbing Lestrade and letting him bleed to death.

As Sherlock’s fantasies go it’s a mild one. He and Mycroft have discussed the depths of Sherlock’s depravity, Mycroft feels he has a right to know and John appreciates that, and really in the circumstances the Inspector would be getting of lightly, especially compared to Anderson, but it’s still not a good idea.

John is amazed, every day, at the depths of Sherlock’s self-control. When the urges began to get too strong and Mycroft was abroad on business Sherlock locked himself in his room for three days and managed not to hurt himself or anyone else until his brother returned. But just because he trusts Sherlock can control his urges, doesn’t mean throwing temptation in his face is a good idea (as John learnt to his shame when he cut his neck shaving and forgot to cover the wound before he left the bathroom).

Lestrade on the other hand doesn’t know this and agrees readily, which is how John comes to be sitting in the corner of a private room in the station watching Sherlock watch Lestrade with far too much interest and clutch a wickedly sharp flick-knife with a casualness that John knows all too well spells trouble.

He is not going to reveal Sherlock’s dark secret to Lestrade – it’s rare enough that Sherlock gets along with anyone and Lestrade has always struck John as being singularly fond of Sherlock, in an exasperated sort of way – so all he can do is sit and hope and try to intervene before things get too out of hand.

“So how do you want…?” Lestrade begins but Sherlock’s not in the mood for banal conversations. He swings the knife at Lestrade, a wide sweeping arc, showy and obvious and moving far slower than John knows he can when he’s got a blade in his hand, but even so Lestrade barely gets his truncheon up in time. Sherlock grins at him, still mostly pretending to be normalish, but with just a hint of that mad bright smile that means he’s about to really hurt someone shining through.

“Slow Inspector, for too slow. If I were Wentworth you’d be bleeding out right now. You have to learn to be on the alert all the time. It needs to be second nature to watch for danger. You deal with dangerous criminals Lestrade. How likely are they to give you a warning before they attack?”

Lestrade nods resignedly but points out that he was hardly expecting his colleague to try and gut him.

“I was aiming for your throat,” Sherlock points out, apparently reasonable. “This knife is too short to do really lasting damage to your abdomen. And you must never assume Lestrade. But if you insist on it, assume I want to kill you. You’ll do a lot better at the lesson if you do.”

Of course he will, John wants to say, because you do and I can see you calculating the likelihood of serious repercussions if you were to accidentally hurt him. He settles for coughing and saying, “Be careful Sherlock, it is his first lesson.”

Sherlock shoots him a look both scathing and appreciative. He’s always pleased when John manages to read him successfully.

“Trust me John; I know what I’m doing. Slow as he is, the Inspector is in no danger.” John understands what he’s saying.

“But never let it be said that I don’t play fair. Inspector, I am going to attack you now.”

John watches them quietly for some time, glad that years of not laughing at patients has left him extremely good at damping down his emotions.

Sherlock has changed in the last few days, and it’s only when Sherlock and Lestrade both burst out laughing at a particularly clumsy swipe by Greg that John sees it. Sherlock now is relaxed in a way he never used to be and John’s stomach clenches at the thought of what it must have cost his friend to remain hidden all those years, to conceal his true self, even from Mycroft who comes the closest of anyone to understanding Sherlock’s awe inspiring mind.

There’s something new too about the way Sherlock moves, some new sensuality that John can’t help but notice and admire. He had been so sure, those first few months with Sherlock that he was asexual. It wasn’t just that he never flirted unless it was too get something, it was everything about him, the way he moved, the way he spoke, the things he did and didn’t notice. This Sherlock though, the one with his sleeves rolled up, the flick knife held casually, laughing, and, John can’t help but notice, eyeing his pupil appreciatively, is a different kettle of fish.

John’s happy to let them wind things up in their own time until, that is, Sherlock gets a swipe in through Lestrade’s defence, leaving a line of blood on his cheek. To John’s surprise however, Lestrade calls a halt before John can step in. John hopes that doesn’t mean he’s noticed the distinctly blood-thirsty gleam in Sherlock’s eyes.

“I think that means it’s time to stop,” Lestrade says, one hand pressed to his injured cheek. “I know about you and knives.”

When Sherlock gives him a questioning look he replies, blushing slightly, “I wound up in bed with your brother last week. I saw the scars.”

John’s stomach drops. This is what he’s been terrified of ever since Mycroft first blackmailed him into Sherlock’s sex life.

“There’s just one thing I’ve been wondering,” Lestrade says, his voice cold. Sherlock’s hands are shaking slightly John notices absently.

“Who won the game of noughts and crosses?”

Relief washes over John like a tide as Sherlock throws back his head and laughs and laughs.

When at last he’s got his breath back he says, “I did. But John wasn’t really concentrating. And I believe he had his eyes shut most of the time.”

Lestrade nods. “Mycroft didn’t remember. Said his mind was on other things at the time, hardly surprising in the circumstances. And no,” he adds, seeing the worry still present on John’s face, “I’m not going to arrest him. I know it’s far beyond what anyone can legally consent too outside of surgery, but I also know Mycroft and I don’t believe even Sherlock is capable of making Mycroft Holmes do anything he didn’t want too. But I am calling a halt the lesson. It’s been useful though, thanks.”

After he’s gone John is inclined to relieved laughter until Sherlock shoots him a heated look and says in a low voice, “I just cut Lestrade.”

John knows him well enough now to see that this is a test of sorts, so he just replies calmly, “Probably time to get you home then. Best put away the knife though, or we’ll never get a taxi.”

When Sherlock’s put the knife away, God knows where (John has never actually seen his get it out or put it away, it just appears or disappears from his hand as if by magic), they manage to get a cab.

Sherlock is quiet on the journey home. When John comments on it, Sherlock leans over and whispers, close to his ear, “I am so turned on right now.”

John doesn’t know whether to be amused, aroused or appalled so he settles for a mixture of all three.

Sherlock hands the taxi driver a note apparently at random from his wallet and bounds into 221 without waiting to see if it’s the right amount. Once they’re inside he removes his coat and scarf and, to John’s amazement, carefully hangs them up. Then he disappears into the kitchen and after considerably banging and crashing, emerges with a mug of tea, which he hands to John. When John just stares at is suspiciously is gestures impatiently for John to sit down. As he obeys, John wonders if it makes him a bad friend that he’d quite like the tea drugs tested before he drinks it. He knows for a fact that Sherlock has rohypnol in the house and he dreads to think what else.

When he’s seated, Sherlock begins to pace. “I am going to ask you a question now,” he says, “I want you to know first however that I will not allow your answer to affect our friendship and also that you have nothing to fear from me.” He takes a deep breath, looking straight at John. “Will you have sex with me?”

That hadn’t been the question John had been expecting. After a moment of shock he manages to force out, “do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“I want you and I believe, based on my observations, that you want me. You are aware of my… darker desires and I believe my desire for you is sufficient that I would be able to achieve climax without an excessive amount of pain. I cannot see any problem therefore in our engaging in intercourse. The ultimate decision however rests with you.”

He’s nervous, John thinks. He always starts talking like Mycroft when he’s nervous. He wants you and he’s certainly right about you wanting him. And after all, what’s the worst that can happen?

He brain bombards him with horrible images but he pushes them aside. He trusts Sherlock. Even so though…

“The flick knife stays down here,” he says firmly.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 

Sherlock’s kisses are rough and demanding, his long fingers pressing into John’s hair and pulling his head to where he wants it but John’s not complaining. He gives as good as he gets, using his extra muscle to his advantage. He hadn’t meant it too be a contest, not at first, he’d just been sure that in this at least he wasn’t going to blindly follow where Sherlock lead, but Sherlock apparently wasn’t in a submissive mood because now they were engaged in a fight for dominance that had already broken Sherlock’s bedside lamb and left them both panting with exertion.

It is perhaps a little rougher than John would like (and he can’t wondering what the sex will be like if this is the foreplay) but on the other hand Sherlock’s horny and gorgeous and not currently armed so he’s prepared to go with it.

Sherlock finally manages to get them into a position where he can use his extra height to his advantage and presses John against the door, his long arms pinning him like a butterfly on a specimen tray.

“Lovely,” he whispers, so quiet John’s not sure he really heard it but then Sherlock’s ducking his head to John’s neck and all thoughts fly out of his mind. Sherlock is even less gentle now, pressing only one open mouthed kiss to the sensitive skin just below John’s left ear before he sinks his teeth in, not hard enough to draw blood but hard enough that John lets out a sharp cry of pain and nearly manages to straggle out of his grip. Sherlock pauses for a moment with his teeth sunk deep into John’s skin and then he pulls back a little and sucks to abused skin into his mouth.

John’s had love bites before of course, and he’s always quite liked them, but they’ve never felt like this. All he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and he’s vaguely aware that it’s only Sherlock’s long fingers gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise that’s stopping him ending up a crumpled heap on the floor. The thing is though, the thing that seems most important to John’s addled brain, is that it hurts. Really fucking hurts, but somehow that hurt is making him lightheaded and fizzy and he really wants more.

Sherlock pulls back, letting the purpling flesh slip from between his lips and almost without knowing he’s doing it John presses forward, wanting more of that dizzying feeling. One of Sherlock’s elegant hands comes up to his neck, pressing him back against the wall and then they both freeze, oh so aware of just what Sherlock wants to do.

Sherlock takes a tiny step back, not moving his hands, and stares, his eyes wide, his pupils blown with lust. Then he shakes his head. “Another day,” he says, half to himself, and kisses John.

John doesn’t move, doesn’t return the kiss, just lets Sherlock use his mouth, his whole mind blank as the adrenaline rushes through him. For a minute there, he’d thought Sherlock might actually do it; he’d though his very life was in danger, and no he knows it’s not, now he’s safe again, his body is releasing every endorphin it’s got and John has never been so aroused in his life.

Sherlock’s hands moving from where they’re pinning him to curl around his back and into his hair restarts his brain and he begins to kiss back in earnest, using his friend’s distraction to steer him back until he topples onto the bed, John wasting no time in climbing onto it after him and straddling his hips.

Sherlock props himself up on his elbows and surveys him with interest. “You liked…” he begins and then he grins his wide, feral, someone’s-going-to-die-and-it-won’t-be-me smile and says affectionately, “Danger slut.”

John gawps at him and Sherlock takes the opportunity to roll them over so that John’s flat on his back with Sherlock between his legs, grinning down at him. John’s pretty sure he should be terrified by Sherlock looking at him like this, but all the blood’s rushed south and there’s none left to power his brain so he just kisses him, arching his hips up to grind against Sherlock’s.

Sherlock lets him, smiling indulgently, his kisses slow and languid and driving John wild because where’s all the passion? And then Sherlock pulls back, looks him straight in the eye and says, “I’m going to get on my knees now and you are going to fuck my mouth as brutally as your bourgeois conscience will you,” and suddenly John doesn’t care.

Sherlock slides to his knees and John is suddenly acutely aware that they’re both still dressed. He’s pretty sure at least some clothing should have actually been removed by this point, not just mauled, but Sherlock kneeling between his legs, still dressed in his finely tailored trousers and shirt is strangely arousing, so he says nothing.

Sherlock’s fingers are deft as he opens John’s fly and if he had any brain-power to spare for anything that isn’t the thought of Sherlock sucking him off, John might have been offended or at least disappointed that he’s still so in control. And then his cock is engulfed in hot wet heat and nothing else matters.

He savours the feeling for a minute, it’s been too long since he had a blow job, and then Sherlock is impatiently tugging his hand into his hair and he remembers what it is Sherlock wants.

He uses the long curls to slowly drag Sherlock’s head down, his cheeks hollowing as more and more of John’s cock slips into his mouth. When he’s taken in as much as anyone’s ever taken of John, John stops. He looks at Sherlock’s face only to see Sherlock roll his eyes at John’s good manners and bury his face in John’s pubes. John shouts with surprise and arousal and his hips buck forward. Sherlock gags, the contractions of his throat muscles feeling like heaven to John, and groans.

Emboldened by that noise, John winds his fingers back into Sherlock’s hair and pulls him of, only to plunge back into his mouth a moment later. At first he’s still considerate, trying not to hurt Sherlock, but once it becomes apparent that that was precisely what Sherlock wants he gives in and just loses himself in the hot wet heat, setting a punishing rhythm and doing his best to forget about Sherlock’s comfort or desires. It’s disturbingly easy.

It’s easily the best blow job John’s ever had but then he jerks with surprise as Sherlock’s long finger’s cupped his balls, opening his eyes and looking down at the brunette head between his legs, huge eyes looking up at him through long lashes. It’s that sight, Sherlock Holmes on his knees, his eyes bright with tears from the discomfort and one hand pressing desperately against his own rock hard penis through his trousers that tips John over the edge embarrassingly quickly.

He groans with pleasure, his eyes sliding closed as he comes, electric shocks of pleasure filling his whole body.

Sherlock stays exactly where he is, swallowing everything and continuing to suck John’s over sensitive cock until he drags him of it by his hair.

He flops back onto the bed, enjoying the afterglow and then it occurs to him suddenly that Sherlock hasn’t come. He’s been trying not to think about this bit, trying not to think about the terrifying prospect of putting his hand around another man’s cock with the intention of making it him feel good. He suddenly feels like a scared virgin again.  
He’s pretty sure that he could manage a hand job, after all it can’t be that different from what he does pretty much every night. But he’s also pretty sure that if it was that easy to get Sherlock of, Sherlock wouldn’t have been celibate for the last few years.

In the end he decides to take the easy way out (well the easy way that doesn’t make him a complete bastard).

“Sherlock, you’re going to have to help me here because I have no idea what to do to get someone of who thinks crime scenes are arousing.”

“Hurt me,” Sherlock says, and John feels a flare of heat in his spine when he hears how wrecked Sherlock’s voice sounds. “For God’s sake hurt me because if you don’t distract me I’m going to hurt you and you don’t want to know how many weapons I have easily to hand in this room.”

That may be the least sexy thing anyone has ever said to him (although he suspects Mycroft would disagree) but this is Sherlock so he’s prepared to go with it.

John reaches up to rub his neck, wondering where to start, and then his hand knocks against the sore spot where he can still feel the indents from Sherlock’s teeth. That’s a starting point at least. He opens his arms.

Sherlock comes willingly enough, carefully arranging his long body against John’s, his erection digging into John’s hip. Whether it’s deliberate or not, the side of his neck was just there, within reach, so John lunges.

He hasn’t thought about how hard or how deep, he just bites, so it’s a moment before it registers just how hard he’s bitten. It isn’t until his teeth began to ache slightly from the force that he realises and when he does he opens his jaw wider, removing his teeth from Sherlock’s flesh and his mouth fills with a sudden rush of blood.

Sherlock moans, low and dirty and before john can feel bad, he’s grabbed John’s hand, guiding it to the bulge in his trousers and murmuring, “God John, please,” in the most broken tone John has ever heard from him.

It’s instinct then to open Sherlock’s flies and belt, shove his trousers and boxers out of the way and wrap his hand around Sherlock’s cock. It’s hot and hard in his hand, the flesh velvety smooth, and so totally unlike touching himself that he’s a little taken aback. Then Sherlock moans and he finds his hand moving of its own accord, muscle memory providing the right squeeze and the little twist that makes his toes curl.

Sherlock moans and writhes in a way that makes John feel really good about himself and then to his horror he feels one of Sherlock’s own hands shoving his own out of the way.

He’s about to splutter something, an apology or a demand for an explanation he isn’t sure which, when Sherlock groans out, “You chew your nails.”

The incongruity of the statement stalls John for a moment and he can’t resist looking down. And then it all makes sense. Sherlock’s wanking himself but he far slower that John likes it, on account of having his fingernails (John had always wondered why he didn’t trim them really short like most men) dug as hard as he can into the sensitive flesh of his cock.

“Bite me,” he whimpers and John, once again in shock, complies, sinking his teeth into the flesh below the still oozing wound he’d left earlier.

“Over the last one,” Sherlock grunts, his hand speeding up.

Everything in John, not least his medical training, screams at him not to do it, but obeying Sherlock was what he did so he shrugs of his fears and sinks his teeth into Sherlock’s soft flesh, right over the weeping bite marks.

As John’s mouth fills with blood, Sherlock gasps loudly and goes rigid in his arms, only the hand on his cock still working, and then he relaxes, his whole body going limp and boneless as John wonders whether spit or swallow being only a matter of preference applies to blood as well.

Sherlock, his body balanced precariously on the edge of the bed, his eyes shut in bliss says, “spit it on the bedclothes if it bothers you, they’ve got plenty of my blood on them already.”

John closes his eyes in disgust and swallows.


	6. ... and then there was this Meth addict who thought I was Jesus!

If you’ve lived, for any length of time, in barracks or in a war zone or been a junior doctor, you pretty soon develop an internal list of ‘things I really didn’t want to wake up to’. John’s includes the building he’s sleeping in coming under mortar fire, a drunk comrade tea-bagging him and a meth addict who was convinced he was Jesus. He’d thought it was a pretty comprehensive list. Until he met Sherlock.

He half opens his eyes, decides he doesn’t like what he can see, and shuts them again.

“What time is it,” he groans, half hoping this is a dream and he’s still sleeping because it looks awfully dark still.

 

“Just after four,” comes the reply from far too close by his ear. “I just got in.”

“Good for you. Now go to bed.”

There’s a rustling of cloth and his mattress dips under the unaccustomed weight, slight though it is, of another body.

“I can’t sleep and Molly wouldn’t let me bring home any lungs and the e-coli won’t be ready until Tuesday and you have a lovely neck.”

John gives up on sleep and opens his eyes again. “Am I lungs then?” he asks, wondering why he’s so calm. Sherlock openly admits to wanting to kill him and Sherlock is in his bed. There’s definitely something he should object too there, he’s sure.

“Can I sleep in your bed?” Sherlock asks, peering down at him, his face disconcertingly close, his eyes wide and unblinking.

A year ago, hell less than a month ago, he’d have chucked Sherlock out on his arse. Now though he just murmurs, “Will I be in danger if you do?”

Sherlock shakes his head, a lock of dark hair falling forward to brush John’s nose. “I might cuddle you though. Mycroft used to say when we were kids that I was like a limpet to share a bed with. Which made him a rock of course, which makes it a pleasingly accurate metaphor all round.”

John sighs and rolls over, closer to the wall. There’s some rustling which he assumes is Sherlock removing some clothing (how much his brain wonders, suddenly interested in proceedings) and then a warm body slides into John’s bed, plastering itself against his back. He’s never going to get back to sleep now.

“Why the body parts Sherlock?” John asks, his voice soft with sleep.

“No idea. Never bothered to analyse it. It’s a compulsion but it’s one of my least dangerous and most socially acceptable compulsions so I don’t worry about it.” John thinks it explains a lot about Sherlock that he thinks compulsively dissecting human body parts is socially acceptable.

There’s silence then, just their breathing, Sherlock’s slow and deep, ruffling the hair at the back of John’s neck.

This isn’t something John had ever expected, not something he’d ever allowed for in his considerations of his and Sherlock’s life together. This isn’t about justice or puzzles or adrenaline. It’s not about pain or blood or sex (alright he concedes to his hind brain, maybe just a little about sex). It’s just about being close to one another. Their relationship defies all societies’ neat little pigeon holes and that’s okay. He can live with that thought.

His mother, like all mothers, had told him again and again that what mattered, all that mattered, was that he be happy. It was sweet of her to have made the effort, but she was far worse than most people’s parents at hiding what a lie that was. She didn’t mean happy, she meant conventional. She meant comfortable.

He’d spent so long looking for conventional that he’d lost sight of happiness entirely, but Sherlock had helped him find it again and it wasn’t normal or acceptable or even comfortable, but it was happiness. And that was what really mattered.

For a long time they lie, drifting on the edge of sleep, enjoying the silence, but neither of them can ever resist talking.

“You know when you said we could never have sex?” John asks, turning so he’s facing Sherlock in the darkness. There was a grunt of assent. “You were wrong.”

“Indeed.”

“You’re never going to willingly give up Mycroft though are you?”

Sherlock’s eyes flew open. “Did you expect that I would? Apart from anything else he can offer me a release which you cannot, which I would never ask of you. I need to hurt someone John, and I won’t hurt you. Not the way I do Mycroft.”

John understood what was meant by that. No doubt Sherlock would hurt him and enjoy it, but it would never be hurt for the sake of hurt. Mycroft allowed him the freedom to be a disinterested sadist, to disregard anything and anyone but the knife and his own feelings. It would never be like that between the two of them.

“How are we… I mean, how’s it going to work, you me and Mycroft? I’ve got no frame of reference for this kind of thing.”

“Relationships are not my area John, even ones as unusual as this. Mycroft fancies you though.”

John tries to fit that idea into his head but gives up. There isn’t a hole the right size or shape.

“I thought at first that Mycroft being in your life meant there was no chance for... you know… us. You said you’d never done anything like that before, but you and he… it just seemed so easy for you. You slotted together instantly.”

“There’s been something there for years,” Sherlock admitted. “Ever since I went for him for help after… well, since then, there’s been a tension between us. I think we would have ended up in bed together whether you came along or not, eventually. But with you here, there’s a chance we won’t kill each other.”

John raises his eyebrows and Sherlock responds even though it’s surely too dark for him to have seen the expression. “Alright, me kill him then. Though I wouldn’t underestimate his ability to protect himself when he wants too.”

“And now I’m stuck in the middle, like some kind of human no man’s land, doing my best to stop you killing each other and hoping you won’t kill me instead.”  
Sherlock snorts. “Like you mind.”

John smiles a little, not because it’s true (although he’s worried that it is), but because Sherlock is comfortable enough to make jokes.

“So we’re just going to keep muddling through, the three of us, trying not to kill one another and hoping we get some decent sex to make up for the threat of death? That’s not your most intelligent plan ever.”

“I don’t know, sounds all right to me.”

“But you think the threat of death is hot.”

“True. I wonder if I can reach to open the drawer in your bedside table without moving?”

“No Sherlock. No guns.”

“Spoil sport.”

“For God’s sake go to sleep.”

 

**********************************************************************************************************************

 

Bored is an unusual feeling for John these days. Usually his life is so hectic that he’s glad of every chance to rest. But he’s done resting and now he’s really really bored.

He mentions as much to Sherlock, whose eyes lit up with unholy fire. “I’ve got a game we can play,” he says, sounding really quite normal for a complete bloody psychopath. “How about I get my flick knife and you get your gun and whoever’s the least injured when the police turn up is the winner?”

“No.”

“I find get some lube and you get your gun and we see how long it takes me to come just from you putting it inside me?”

“Definitely no.”

“I get my flick knife and we see how long it takes you too chicken out completely when I’m bleeding all over your sheets?”

“Not nearly as long as you’d like to think Sherlock. Stop suggesting these things!”

Sherlock shrugs, unrepentant. “You said you were bored. Those are things that would amuse me right now.”

John shakes his head in sheer exasperation and then a thought pops into his head. A really evil, totally inappropriate thought that won’t go away and he’s clearly spent too much time with only members of the Holmes family for company because no normal person thinks like that.

He sighs, mock annoyed now, and says, “Whatever Sherlock. If I can’t think of anything fun to do I might as well do some chores.”

He has to force himself to take the walk to his bedroom at normal speed, to not hurry or do anything else that will give Sherlock a clue as to his intentions. It works because he hears a definite surprised intake of breath when he returns holding his gun and its cleaning kit.

He clears a little space on the coffee table and settles himself in his favourite armchair, ensuring that Sherlock has a good view. Then he begins to take his gun apart.

It’s something he’s done countless times, something he’s always found soothing, even in the heat of the dessert. It reassures him, knowing that his weapon is in full working order and confirming himself that he knows how it all works, how it fits together. He is in control of this deadly little thing.

But despite his calm he’s aware of Sherlock watching him, dark eyes staring, unblinking, as they only do when Sherlock’s sure he’s safe. There are little gasps and intakes of breath too and when he finally slots the last piece back into place there’s a whimper. He stretches out his arm, sites along the barrel which is pointing straight at his flatmate. That was definitely a groan. He slips the magazine back in and crooks back the safety and he never thought he’d hear Sherlock whimper like that unless someone was actually dead.

He stands up, still holding the weapon, and takes a step, and then another, until he’s standing only a pace away from Sherlock, the gun barely an inch away from being pressed against his flat-mate’s forehead.

Sherlock doesn’t speak, just stares up at John, his eyes wide and dark with lust, his mouth falling open to gasp in breaths. There are probably people who could resist Sherlock looking at them like that, but John certainly isn’t one of them.

He does however still have the presence of mind to flick the safety on and put down the gun before leaning in to kiss Sherlock.

Sherlock opens his mouth as soon as John’s lips touch his, his tongue slipping into John’s mouth and stroking against his lover’s tongue.

John leans forward, bracing his arms against the sofa’s arm-rest either side of Sherlock’s head.

As the kiss deepens, becoming more heated, John climbs onto the sofa, straddling Sherlock’s narrow hips. He pauses for a moment, staring down at the slender form beneath him, with undisguised wonder. Whatever he did to deserve this must have been amazing.

Sherlock arches his spine, demanding John pay attention to him.

John returns his attention to Sherlock, pressing open mouthed kisses to his friends pale neck. One of his hands slides down to squeeze Sherlock’s bum and then round to the front to cup… nothing.

He pushed himself away from Sherlock, ending up crouched at the opposite end of the sofa. “I though… What did I do wrong?”

Sherlock sighed in that way that meant John had horribly disappointed him (again) and said, “This is why I said we could never have sex.”

“But I don’t understand! I thought you were enjoying it!”

“Well I never mind being intimate with you, provided it doesn’t interfere with my work. But I did warn you before this even started that I had no interest in normal sex. If you want me to show the same interest in this as you do, then by all means, fetch me a knife. Otherwise you’re just going to have to accept things the way they are.”

John put his head in his hands. He should have known things were too good to be true.


	7. Climax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is just unashamed PWP. On the plus side, it's got the breath-play I've been holding out on.

Mycroft is undressing, his back to Sherlock. Which turns out to be a very bad idea. John barely has time to cry out before the garrotte goes round Mycroft’s neck, the thin chord biting into the soft flesh as his little brother presses himself against his back.

“You’re getting complacent brother dear,” he hisses into Mycroft’s ear, his voice venomous. “Surely you know better than to turn your back on an enemy?”

“You’re not my enemy,” Mycroft manages to gasp out, his hands coming up to clutch at the wire thin chord pressing into his throat.

Sherlock laughs, a humourless chuckle that sounds distinctly sinister. “I want to brutally maim you, it’s the same thing.”

John is just beginning to wonder whether he should maybe intervene when Mycroft leans back against his brother and asks, voice just a touch breathless, “How brutally?”

“You will never have experienced pain like it.”

“Promises, promises.”

Sherlock apparently tires of flirting then, or at least of what passes for flirting between the brothers, because his hands twitch and Mycroft lets out a gasp of shocked pain and scrabbles to try and slide his fingers under the chord.

“Sherlock…” John says, his voice holding a note of censure.

Sherlock’s head whips round to look at him, his eyes narrowed. “Oh he doesn’t mind John, I assure you.” He grips the ends of the garrotte in his left hand and slides his right down his brother’s body to cup the bulge tenting the crotch of the older man’s trousers. “You can come and check for yourself if you like.”

John turns his head away to avoid Sherlock’s confrontational stare. Things have been tense between them since their disastrous kiss.

John’s disinterest apparently doesn’t bother Sherlock, who shrugs and drags Mycroft back toward the bed using the garrotte.

When he feels the edge of the mattress against the back of his knees, Sherlock quickly releases the garrotte and spins himself and Mycroft, pushing Mycroft back onto the bed.  
The older man shuffles back until he’s propped up against the pillows, his younger brother straddling his hips.

Sherlock traces the raw red line on his brother’s neck with a slim finger and then ducks his head to sink his teeth into the bruised flesh. None too tenderly, apparently, for Mycroft cries out and bucks beneath him.

John long ago gave up trying to ignore the things the brothers are willing to do in front of him (and it’s only getting more extreme over time), so he’s watching when Sherlock lifts his head and grins, revealing teeth stained red with his brother’s blood.

John thinks it’s a mark of how low the brothers have dragged him that he still thinks he looks beautiful.

Mycroft is apparently sick of being ignored while Sherlock makes eyes at John because he wriggles impatiently. “I was promised brutality Sherlock,” he says.

Sherlock absently reaches out and clamps his over Mycroft’s throat and squeezes. Mycroft gasps but goes quiet.

Eyes still on John’s, Sherlock carefully licks blood from his lips. It isn’t that which breaks John’s resolve though. It’s the sight of Sherlock’s long elegant fingers clamped close around his brother’s pale throat, blood oozing from beneath his hand. He stands up. Sherlock grins.

“I though strangulation was me,” he says, trying to keep the jealousy from his voice.

Sherlock’s grin widens. He looks like a cat surveying a baby bird.

He holds out a hand and after only a moment’s hesitation, John takes it.

The kiss Sherlock draws him into is fiercely passionate, teeth playing a part just as much as lips and tongue. John nips at Sherlock’s full bottom lip and tastes his blood, mixing with the lingering taste of his brother’s. He braces himself, expecting the disgust he’d experienced last time he tasted Sherlock’s blood, but this time the taste of him, the taste of them, sends little sparks of desire fizzing through him.

He glances over Sherlock’s shoulder and finds himself unable to tear his gaze away from Mycroft’s. He’s so used to Mycroft looking politely cheerful that seeing the passion which he’s known for months the man is capable of directed at him makes him harden still further. The Holmes brothers are going to be the death of him, but oh what a way to go.

He pulls back from Sherlock and just stands, looking between the two of them, trying to make sure they want him here, and wondering what he’d done to deserve these amazing men.

Mycroft is the first to break the silence.

“I am aware that this is all new too you John, however I don’t think waiting is a good idea given Sherlock’s mood this evening. You do not, after all, relish pain the way I do.”  
John looks from one expectant face to the other and shrugs. “Let’s get on with it then.”

 

**************************

 

John lies, looking up at Sherlock, and trying not to let his fear show in his face. Mycroft’s hand rests reassuringly on his shoulder. Sherlock tries to look reassuring but he has John beneath him, willing to let him wrap his hands around his throat, and nothing could hide the sadistic pleasure in his eyes.

He tries to be gentle as he presses his hands into the tender flesh of John’s neck. He can feel John’s pulse beating rapidly under his fingers, his larynx moving as he swallows.

He adds pressure gently, watching John’s face intently for signs of panic. There’s fear there certainly, but only a little, carefully controlled by John’s immense bravery and Mycroft’s soothing fingers, but there’s also desire and that blind trusting devotion that only John has ever expressed toward Sherlock. It makes him feel unexpectedly tender toward John, a desire to please and to protect his lover warring with his natural tendency to cruelty.

He is as gentle as he can be, keeping the pressure minimal, enough to make breathing a struggle, but not enough to crush John throat. A little fear, a little discomfort but no pain. Not yet.

John begins to wriggle a little and Sherlock releases his throat, allowing John to draw a deep breath. He can feel John’s excitement, read it in his body. He’s not so aroused by this as Sherlock, or indeed Mycroft, but he’s enjoying it. And in time he could learn to love it. Now is not the time.

Sherlock presses his hands once again to John’s throat, long fingers stretching out to curl as far as possible around the tanned flesh. He presses down, not hard, not yet, but too quickly to be comfortable. A smile spreads unbidden across his features, wild and sadistic and not at all sane. He already knows how disconcerting it is, but the knowledge is reinforced as John’s eyes widen for the first time with genuine dread.

He leans in a little closer than necessary so that he can smell John’s fear, the acrid tang of adrenaline, and watch the thoughts flitting through his mind. He hops only Mycroft sees how much he’s enjoying John’s terror.

He sits for a minute, savouring the reaction his gentle hand is wringing from John, but he can’t resist the urge to squeeze.

John tries to keep still, but every instinct is telling him to fight back. His chest is heaving, trying to draw a breath that won’t come. His vision is beginning to grey around the edges and now he’s really struggling, really frightened. Mycroft’s warm hand is still on shoulder, but now it feels like a threat rather than a reassurance and all he can see is Sherlock’s mad mad eyes staring down at him.

Just as the panic begins to overwhelm him he hears Mycroft’s voice, low and gentle, say, “Sherlock,” in a warning tone of voice and Sherlock’s hand loosens.

John draws in great gulping breaths, feeling his body fizz with adrenaline. Sherlock grins at him.

“I got a little bit carried away.”

John manages a shaky laugh. “Just a bit,” he says. The relief, the knowledge that he’s still alive, is making his body fizz. He feels high with the relief. He rolls onto his side and kisses Mycroft deeply, wanting to feel the warmth of another living body against him.

Mycroft tugs him closer, their bodies pressed together, the kiss deep and passionate.

John jumps when he feels warmth behind him, pulls away from Mycroft and half turns his head to watch Sherlock press a string of little kisses to the side of his neck.  
As Sherlock kisses and licks the bruised skin, with just a hint of teeth, Mycroft begins to unbutton John’s shirt. John would be embarrassed, being slowly undressed while the brothers remain fully clothed, but Sherlock chooses that moment to bite down, not hard enough to really hurt, on the sensitive flesh just below his ear. John moans and tips his head back, trying to give Sherlock better access to his throat.

Mycroft runs his tongue over John’s left nipple, startling a moan from him. Taking this as encouragement he nips gently at the sensitive flesh, John’s gasps of pleasure muffled as he turns to catch Sherlock’s mouth in a brief kiss.

Sherlock slides back so that he can push John down until he’s lying on his back. His long fingers find John’s flies and John obligingly lifts his hips so Sherlock can tug off his jeans.  
Sherlock reaches across to where Mycroft lies watching them with lust-dark eyes, strokes a hand through his brother’s dark hair and then uses it to guide his head down to John’s crotch. Mycroft takes the hint.

John barely has time to realise what’s going on before wet heat encloses him, making him cry out in startled pleasure.

Sherlock’s fingers curl possessively in Mycroft’s hair as he pushes his head down, forcing him to take more of John’s cock into his mouth. John tries to keep still, tries to be conciderate, but his instincts are in charge, and Sherlock is doing nothing to help his self-control. He thrusts his hips up, moaning at the sensation.

Mycroft makes a small noise of protest and tries to raise his head, but Sherlock tightens his grip on his brother’s hair. He looks straight into John’s eyes.

“Don’t worry about trying to be gentle; he enjoys having his throat fucked nearly as much as I do.”

Mycroft responds by running his tongue along the underside of John’s cock, making him moan.

John gives in to the wonderful sensation of Mycroft’s throat muscles fluttering against his cock and thrusts up, rewarded by moans from both Sherlock and Mycroft.  
John sets a steady rhythm of thrusts which are matched by Sherlock, dragging Mycroft’s head up and down by the hair like a puppet. Mycroft himself can do nothing but allow them to use him, not that he minds if his moans and whimpers are anything to go by.

Suddenly, without warning, Sherlock drags his brother’s face away from John’s crotch and asks, “John, how would you feel about Mycroft fucking you?”

John stares at him for a minute, mind still full of fog and his body screaming at the loss of glorious sensation, but then he shrugs and says, “Well I don’t have any objections to the idea. But I thought…”

Sherlock smiles at him, not a nice smile. “It just seems a shame to let the garrotte go to waste after I went too all the trouble of stealing it from the evidence room.”

“You stole it from the police?!” John demands.

“It’s no great loss, the case would never have made it too court. The evidence was all circumstantial.”

When he sees the look John’s giving him he sighs and says, “Very well. If you insist I’ll put it back later. But that’s just all the more reason to enjoy it while I have it. Don’t you agree, brother dearest?”

Mycroft’s grin is nearly as wide as Sherlock’s. John can’t help but wonder what it was in their upbringing that gave them this appetite for self-destruction.

Sherlock releases Mycroft’s hair and leans across to tug open the drawer of his bedside table and gropes around until he finds a tube of lube.

He squeezes a little onto his fingers then pauses. “Have you done this before?” he asks John.

John can’t stop the giggle forcing its way out of his throat. “Most people would have asked before now,” he told Sherlock. “Yes I’ve had stuff up my arse before now. I was a medical student for heaven’s sake! You wouldn’t believe the stuff med students get up to when they’re supposed to be revising for finals. And yes, I’ve had sex with a man before. Not for a while, but I’m not a virgin. Now for heaven’s sake, get on with it!”

Mycroft gave a soft huff of laughter and reached over to take the tube from Sherlock. When Sherlock frowned Mycroft gave him is most irritatingly serene smile. “You’re not exactly known for being gentle brother dear.”

Sherlock scowled and arranged himself cross-legged on the bed, arms folded. He looked like a child who’d been denied sweets. Mycroft and John looked at one another and chuckled.

John’s laughter was cut of abruptly when he felt the tip of a slick finger stroke against his hole. He gasped as Mycroft pushed in, the slim digit sliding in easily. It had been a long time since John had had anything in his arse and he’d forgotten how odd the sensation was until one adjusted.

When Mycroft added a second finger, John clenched down instinctively against the intrusion. Mycroft stroked a gentle hand along John’s hipbone.

“Relax,” he said, his voice low.

John closed his eyes and concentrated on willing his muscles into surrender. “Talk to me?” he asked, wanting to hear the reassuring tones of Mycroft’s beautiful voice.  
It was Sherlock though who answered.

“You look incredible John, so open and vulnerable. Not just that you’re naked and gorgeous, but you are, and will be even more so once I’ve persuaded you to let me mark you permanently. But that you’re here at all. You trust us. That… amazing. No one has ever trusted me like this before, seen what I’m really like and stayed. Only My and he knows well enough he can protect himself from me if need be. But you…” he trailed of and when he spoke again there was a sort of bewildered wonder in his voice. “You stayed. You saw the monster I am underneath and you stayed… That’s incredible. You’re incredible.”

John felt a rush of warmth in his chest, his heart swelling with emotion. He reached out to cup the back of Sherlock’s head and pull him into a deep, desperate kiss.

When they broke apart, they pressed their foreheads together and took a moment to just breath, revelling in their closeness.

Mycroft, evidently feeling a little left out, chose that moment to add a third finger.

He flexed them and John moaned, Sherlock’s warm body against his helping him adjust quickly to the stretch. Mycroft pulled out his fingers, making John gasp and asked, “Ready?”

John nodded.

Sherlock helped his brother to undress, his long fingers making quick work of the small buttons on his shirt. When Mycroft was naked he grabbed a pillow, pushing it beneath John’s hips, and knelt between John’s spread legs.

“Sure?” he asked, his eyes serious. John nodded.

He was prepared for it, but still the initial stretch took him by surprise, his muscles burned with it.

Mycroft was gentle, pausing to allow John to adjust, letting him set the pace. John thanked his stars that it wasn’t Sherlock taking him. Patience was not his forte and it really had been a long time.

When at last he was seated deep inside his body, Mycroft leant down and kissed John, slow and sweet. After a moment the kiss was broken by Mycroft who tipped his head back and gasped.

Sherlock grinned at John over his brother’s shoulder and he guessed he had begun to prepare Mycroft without warning. Good job the older man was both experienced and forgiving.

Mycroft held himself resolutely still as Sherlock stretched him, though John was desperate for him to move. He tried to push down against Mycroft’s cock, but a firm hand on his hipbone stopped him and he had to lie as still as could with the heavy heat of Mycroft inside him.

He closed his eyes against the sight of the brothers, Sherlock’s grin and Mycroft’s half closed eyes and open mouth. He couldn’t watch them and keep still. So he felt, rather than saw, Sherlock enter Mycroft, felt the additional weight and groaned at the movement.

He opened his eyes to see Sherlock, gleeful expression on his aquiline features, loop the garrotte around Mycroft’s pale neck.

“Showtime.”

Mycroft’s first thrust was shallow as he figured out of the logistics of taking John while Sherlock fucked him, but Sherlock’s patience soon ran out. He thrust hard, pushing Mycroft deep into John who moaned as Mycroft’s cock brushed his prostate and thrust up to meet him.

For now the chord lay loose against Mycroft skin as they found their rhythm, Mycroft coming more and more undone as the dual sensations assaulted him. Sherlock remained unnaturally composed, watching John’s face with heavy lidded eyes. Then he grins languidly and tugs on the ends of the chord.

Mycroft gaps, his head tipping back, and when Sherlock tightens the chord further so that the flesh beneath it goes white, he moans, hips pushing forward into John of their own volition. John’s cock twitches at the sight and he gasps at the contact.

“For Gods sake, both of you, fuck me!” he exclaims, wanting more than the gentle pace they’d set.

Sherlock grins wild and truly himself and shoves his hips forward hard, his flesh slapping against Mycrofts and all three of them groan simultaneously, John’s hand flying to his cock.

The pace Sherlock sets is hard, his thrusts rough and the garrotte tight around his brothers neck.

Mycroft’s face is reddening as the chord around his neck tightens but he never stops moving, his thrusts dictated but the harsh rhythm Sherlock is setting.

Sherlock comes first, groaning his release and slumping forward against his brother.

John’s own orgasm crashes over him unexpectedly, triggered by Sherlock’s, the sight of Sherlock’s abandonment pushing him over the edge.

Mycroft continues to thrust erratically, his hips snapping forward as he chases and orgasm which seems just out of reach. He groans with frustration and moans out his brother’s name.

Sherlock’s fingers twitch, tightening the chord on his brother’s throat and he leans forward and sinks his teeth into Mycroft’s flesh, right over the still weeping bite marks he had left earlier. A trickle of blood stains his brother’s pale skin and John feels Mycroft’s hips stutter as he comes.

Sherlock drops the garrotte and the Mycroft crawls to lie beside John, his head resting on John’s shoulder.

“Well that was nice,” Sherlock says. “And the small pox should be just about ready now as well.”

He wanders out of the room, unconcerned by his nakedness.

John and Mycroft lie for long moments, letting the warmth of the afterglow wash over them.

Eventually John takes the opportunity of having Mycroft all too himself.

“Sherlock seems very fond of you considering he once told me you were his nemesis.”

“We’re Holmeses dear boy, of course we’re rivals. Fighting one another is what we do. Think of it as a family sport. And of course before your intervention he resented my helping him control himself. He thought it made him indebted to me. He simply wouldn’t believe me when I told him it wasn’t part of the game.”

“And now?”

“He can blackmail me just as easily as I can him. Of course I wouldn’t loose my job over something so petty but being accused of incest would be embarrassing.”

Shit, John hates that word, avoids using it even his own head, but what other word it there?

“He finds it hard, even now, to believe anyone cares for him. It’s part of his personality, though I will admit our parents didn’t help. That’s why he’s still so unsure of both of us.”

“I wish there was a way to convince him that we care.”

Mycroft is content to simply run a long fingered hand down John’s back and listen, the way only a Holmes could, to his thinking. At last though the idea crystallises in John’s mind.

“I don’t know if it would be possible, but could we leave our bodies too him, the way people leave them too medical science? He’d like that I think.”

Mycroft chuckled. “We are clearly a bad influence on you, doctor, that’s a gesture only a Holmes would appreciate. Sherlock would love it.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this, why not come be my friend over at gluttonforpunishment.tumblr.com. I rec everything I read and like and reblog some pretties


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